My contest results and records

Ever since I was first licensed as G4iFB in 1979, I’ve kept notes on contests in my station
notebook in order to compare my claimed scores against the adjudicated results, set myself
improvement targets for next time and remember the highs and lows of each event. Some of
those notes and the results I’ve achieved are repeated below (mostly for my benefit not yours!).

2018 (QRV as ZL2iFB)

ARRL International Grid Chase: chasing grid squares is a bit
too much like Bingo or Battleships for me but it’s nice to be able
to hand out a relatively rare grid, and fun to see how much of
the planet I can contact in the year.

2017 (QRV as ZL2iFB, ZM4G & ZM4T)

FOC Marathon
- I made just under 250 QSOs this year, placing a mediocre 4th in the
Oceania open QRO section.

BERU
- I joined a North Island team (unofficially dubbed the “Call Blacks” although team
leader Frank ZL2BR entered us as the dull-as-dishwater “Team NZ North Island”). The contest
was tough going. Claimed 4,480 points from 250 QSOs. The checked score of 4,445 (less
than 1% down) put me 7th overall and
FIRST in Oceania
in the Open-SOA section, narrowly
beating VK4CT - who operated just 12 hours. Overall, a much better result than I expected.

Team NZ North Island narrowly beat our pals on South Island - a close-run thing.

ARRL DX CW
- I went to Holger’s to join ZM4T for a multi-single high power entry. We made
2,356 QSOs and 233 multipliers, claiming 1,644,744 points. After checking, our final score
ended up at 1,599,312 (less than 3% down) placing us
FIRST in Oceania and 17th in the
world - a pretty good result for the team. Although 4 Hawaiians scored more than us, they
were either multi-multi or single-op stations, fortunately.

ARRL DX SSB - not my favorite event or mode but, still,
not a bad way to spend a Sunday. I made 1,145 QSOs
and 172 mults, claiming 581,000 points. Placed
FIRST
in ZL and 3rd in Oceania
with 577,128 points, losing
just 0.7% in checking. Fantastic!

CDXC LF Challenge
- I placed ~7th with a total of 117
DXCCs and 867 QSOs worked on 40 & 80m during March
.

SP DX
- I worked 64 Poles on 40m CW just for fun on our Sunday evening.

All Asia CW
- operated 5½ hours, claiming 10,220 points on 15m single-band high power
assisted from 140 QSOs. Condx OK to JA but not to the rest of Asia.

CDXC HF Challenge
- placed 14th (12th of CDXC members) in the league with 71 countries
worked on 15/12/10m during September.

My score was lower than recent years for several reasons: poor conditions, storm damage to
my LF antennas, too much work and too much time filling digimode slots on FT8.

2016 (QRV as ZL2iFB, ZM4G & ZM4T)

BERU:
I spent most of the day on a family outing but
managed to slip away for a few hours in the chair for this
historic contest. Fruitlessly calling 3C7A on 15/CW cost me
a couple of hours of peak BERU time but it would be an
ATNO and he’s a good op so I seized the chance ... and
then forgot to revert the keyer to my contest call until 4
QSOs later. Ooops. Because of that, I expect my final
score to be about 3,000 points. I ended up in 30th place overall and 6th in ZL with 3,115
points, just ahead of my pal Holger ZL3IO using ZM4T. Holger could only manage a few hours
on-air too, due to competing in a triathlon.

I lost about 10,000 points in checking (2.1%) including 2 mults and placed 8th of 13 ZLs:

CQ WW SSB
- having transferred my log from N1MM to Logger32, uploaded it to LoTW and
submitted my claimed score to 3830 shortly after the contest, I then lost the plot and
neglected to submit my actual entry to CQ Magazine (doh!). I sent in a check log after the
closing date:

ZM4G claim

1000
QSOs

33
zones

93
DXCCs

350,000
points

Scored

995

33

93

343,350

343k points would have been a new ZL record for 15m HP assisted ... but Wes’s record
stands at 189k points. Lesson learnt! I lost less than 2% in checking.

CQ WW CW
- I joined my pals at the club to operate a multi-op single-transmitter setup, our
first major outing at Holger’s QTH, claiming nearly 6½ million points:

ZM4T claim

3,912
QSOs

141
zones

422
DXCCs

6,437,342
points

Scored

3,815

140

411

5,940,882

We were the only ZL entrant in that section. We lost a disappointing 8% in checking including
12 mults.

CQ DX Marathon: I claimed 317 points, the same as last year, and
won the Oceania
plaque
again :-). A ZB pirate cost me 1 point in checking (grrrrr). I logged other ZBs during
the year but unknowingly claimed the duff one.

2015 (QRV as ZL2iFB and ZM4G)

REF CW:
I made a more concerted effort in
the contest this year, especially on LF. Two
French QRP stations emailed me their thanks
for our 80m QSOs - nice! 120 QSOs (three
times as many as last year) netted me a
more respectable 35,200 points (ten times
last year’s effort) and another smart
certificate for FIRST place in Oceania, again.

FOC Marathon:
this was a half-hearted
effort in the contest but as always I enjoyed
catching up with FOC friends.

BERU:
thanks to cyclone Pam and an
intermittent fault in the tribander feeder, I just didn’t feel like entering this year. I grabbed a
few QSOs with friends in far-flung places, chased DX
on the WARC bands and did some chores instead.
Hopefully next year I’ll have a shiny new quad in the
air and I’ll be more competitive ...

Marconi Memorial
: what a star, that clever
Marconi bloke. After all the fun I’ve had on amateur
radio over many years, it seemed fitting to enter a
memorial contest to commemorate him. My score
of 71,565 points (single op, high power) put me
FIRST in Oceania
and New Zealand, and 36th in
the world.

SAC CW
: given declining HF conditions and lots of outside stuff to do, I decided to enter the
low-bands section this year on 80 and 40m, single-op
assisted high power. It turned out to be a miserable rainy
Sunday in NZ so I worked during the daytime, and enjoyed
the dawn and dusk periods playing radio. For no obvious
reason, 80m was an almost complete washout but 40m was
pretty good. I made about 90 Scandinavian QSOs and claimed just over 9,000 points, placing
FIRST in Oceania (albeit the only Oceania entrant!) and 24th in the world out of 36.

Oceania DX Contest I submitted a checklog for this event since I’m on the organizing
committee.

CQ WW CW
: the annual blast, tempered by a tough week
before, teaching in VK2, flying home just in time to make
the start. I managed ‘just’ 23½ hours in the chair. 80m was
in good shape on Monday morning, despite QRN and a
severe caffeine deficiency. I probably should have opted for
an 80m single band entry but I had fun chasing around after
2015 DX band-fillers towards the annual challenges. An
auroral opening on 15m a few hours before the end
brought a string of strong raspy sigs from Scandinavia over
the North pole. My final score was 656,640 having lost 36,000 points (5.2%) in adjudication -
not a good year but enough for
FIRST in ZL and 2nd in Oceania.

CDXC DX Marathon Challenge
is over for another year. I led Oceania by a comfortable
margin and ended about 5th in the world rankings (of CDXC members anyway).

CQ DX Marathon: I claimed 317 points from 277 CQ countries and all 40 CQ zones, a
personal best with 8 more countries than 2012 (a 2½% increase). I won another very nice
plaque for FIRST place in Oceania.

2014 (QRV as ZL2iFB, ZM4G, ZM90DX & VK4KW)

REF CW: I only made 37 Coupe du REF QSOs to earn just 3,000-odd points,
but that was enough to win
in Oceania! Hopefully next
January I’ll make a more
serious effort to give away the ZL multiplier, and clearly I need to do
something dramatic to improve my abysmal error rate having lost 28
% in checking despite my low QSO count! Guess I just wasn’t paying
attention.

FOC Marathon:
yet another casual entry, catching up with friends. No entry from me.

ARRL DX:
I wasn’t planning to enter but HF condx were so good that I got sucked in. I made
775 QSOs and 211 multipliers on 80-10m, giving me just under half a million points claimed -
not bad given that I took several hours off for work, caught up with some gardening and, on
Sunday afternoon, went to Holger’s to operate ZM90DX for a few hours as I had promised to
help them out. Holger ZL3IO and Wes ZL3TE were operating quite seriously, so I was a bit
embarrassed to turn up so late and leave so soon but I really couldn’t spare the full 48 hours
for a serious entry this year. Sorry lads! As ZM4G I scored 479,028 points from 768 QSOs
and 209 multipliers, running single op assisted high power, while ZM90DX made an impressive
3,492,693 points from 4,247 QSOs and 277 multipliers multi-two. Both entries placed
FIRST
ZL
in their respective classes ... and were also last in ZL. Work it out.

BERU:
I made a massive strategic error by not staying up all night from the 11pm local start
of the contest this year. When I finally, reluctantly dragged myself out of bed at 4:30am, I
found the high bands full of beans and my friend John
ZL1BYZ giving out serial numbers in the low hundreds
already. Doh! I’d clearly blown it before I even started!
The morning session was not bad with the usual dip
around the middle of the day while the afternoon/evening
session was full-on. Although I did succeed in getting
another rope over the fir trees to lift the 40m loop
further into the clear (albeit in a plane due N/S, the worst
possible direction for working the UK!), I didn’t finish
putting up a new 80m loop in time for the contest -
perhaps a good thing because 80m was a wash-out with
high band noise and weak signals that would definitely have cast doubt on a shiny new
antenna! 40 through 10m were wide open in the evening, and I was surprised to catch Roger
G3SXW running just 5 watts on both 40 and 20m. DROM Dave G4BUO was as loud as ever,
even on 80m where his 4-square certainly earns its keep, a distinct advantage over the few
other G’s that I heard on 80. There were other nice surprises from various far-flung parts of
what remains of the once great British empire - aside from the UK, VK and VE, I worked 8Q7,
9J2, 9V, VK9X, J3, P29, ZS, P3, 9H and others, although some of them were not actually
participating in the contest. Still, 400 QSOs and 6,000 points tells me it was a good year, on a
par with 2010. I placed 13th overall and
FIRST ZL
in the multi-op [really single-op-assisted]
section with 5,850 points (97% of my claimed score - I’m happy with that). The only other
ZL entrant in that section was Holger ZL3IO.

CDXC LF Challenge: I
worked 108 countries
on the three low bands
this year, ending up in
third place sandwiched
between my pals
G3SJJ and G5LP. 80m
had been a slog lately
with weak signals and
high QRN on my
inverted vee dipole. I
had cunning plans to
erect an 80m loop in
the trees for the
Challenge but a stormy
weekend wrapped the
ropes tightly around 3
high branches, while continuing bad weather throughout March put paid to that idea. Oh well,
no danger of a drought this year! The 40m loop was working well, and I still haven’t got
around to putting up a topband antenna.

Gagarin Cup:
I had a play in this contest to commemorate the Russian astronaut and first
man in space Yuri Gagarin, working only 20m single op unassisted with 500W. I made just
over the 250 QSOs needed to qualify for a certificate, with a claimed score of about 20,000.
Lots of casual callers didn’t realise I needed their ITU zones, fair enough, but many of them
were evidently incapable of understanding or responding to “UR ITU ITU ZONE?”, even if I
slowed down and sent it quite carefully, such is the poor state of CW these days. Trouble with
my wireless keyboard made logging almost impossible at one point, so apologies to those
who called but to whom I didn’t respond. The problem is intermittent, possibly conflict with
another wireless keyboard in the same room. Eventually, the two systems seem to establish
a truce and everything works nicely, for a few months!

CDXC HF Challenge was fun, although I was a bit distracted by trying to work ZD9XF. I
contacted 100 DXCC countries in the month on 10/12/15m, placing 17th in the table:

Oceania DX ContestCW:
I entered single-op single-band
80m, making a little over 60,000 points. As far as I was
concerned, it was a dreadful slog, not much fun at all. My
fault I guess for choosing 80m at sunspot max! The two
highlights were working LA7DFA who said in a cluster spot
“Thanks for the new one on 80!” and 2SZ, the special UK
callsign commemorating the 90th anniversary of the first
round-the-world contact between Mill Hill School near London and Shag Valley, South Island
NZ.

CQ WW CW:
I joined some pals in VK4 for a multi-multi entry as VK4KW. HF condx were
pretty good and the station on a quiet rural site 2 hours NW of Brisbane is competitive so we
had a blast. Including dupes we made just over 10,000
QSOs and DXCC on 10
thru 40m, claiming 22
million points and
beating the previous VK
MM record by a huge margin. We were placed
FIRST in VK, SECOND
in Oceania
and 18th in
the world. We worked
all 40 CQ zones but not on any one band. The ace team
was VK2IA (Bernd), VK3MI (Brian ex-ZL1AZE), VK4CT
(John ex-VK4EMM), VK4BAA (Phil ex-G0HSS), VK4SN
(Alan), VK4TS (Trent), VK4NEF (Eric), VK4NDX (Dave) and me. Being called by 3B8 and 8Q7
on 80m were my highlights of the weekend. Topband was disappointing at this time of the
sunspot cycle.

ARRL 10m:
this was another unplanned entry. I had things to do on the farm but rotten weather put paid to outside work so I had some fun with “low
power” (150W) CW and cluster, scoring about 400,000 points
from 700 QSOs. Some US stations couldn’t hear me at all
(NN3RP and W7CCE for example), most had trouble, but some
have great hearing. Most amazing of all was EI7M, worked on
a skew path with both us beaming at NA. My signal was barely
audible there but the excellent operator persisted to get the full
exchange. I can almost see Lee ZL2AL’s QTH from here but he was CQing endlessly and
clearly not hearing me or other callers: I phoned him to check and, sure enough, he had gone
to lunch, leaving the keyer loop running by mistake. Busted! I missed the ZL record by 100k,
and wished I had operated more than 22 hours. My final score was 395k, just 2% less than I
claimed: I’m happy with that! I placed 50th out of 1,785 DX entrants in my power class.

CQ WPX CW
: due to an IT crisis in the office, I could only spare a few hours to help fix the
15m beam at the club and operate the first hour of WPX.

IOTA:
made 7 QSOs, definitely not enough to bother entering this year.

FOC BWQP
: another hours’ casual fun catching up with old friends. Worked just 15 members
to be placed 3rd to last.

CDXC HF Challenge: I finished 27th out of 50. Hardly an outstanding performance but fun.

Oceania DX Contest SSB: the East Coast Contesters decided to
make a club entry in this event for a change, so several of us operated
under our personal calls from home or at the club site with a target to
make at least 50 QSOs each. I got a bit carried away and made 498
(504 less dupes and one late QSO: I forgot the finish time!) all on 40m
. I would have made a few more except we had visitors on Sunday ...
and I still don’t like SSB. I built a new 40m antenna for this contest, a
fullwave wire loop suspended from a convenient fir tree with the highest corner about 25m up
. It took a few hours of messing around to figure out the right directions, lengths and tensions
for the halyards and to tune the loop to resonance
but it works perfectly, while the little old fishing-pole
vertical did its bit as a diversity RX antenna. With
few exceptions I had little trouble hearing callers but
occasionally I could have done with more than
500W out, or a different voice (how does “three”
or “threeeee” or even “treeeeeeeeeeeeee” come
out sounding like either 2 or 4 - but not 3 - at the
far end?!). For the CW leg I might see if I can get
the old LK550 amp out of retirement, and maybe I
should rig up a change-over system to be able to
transmit on either antenna at the flick of a switch. A
major highlight and quite a surprise was the lack of
QRM from over-the-horizon radar and YB pirates
on 40m all weekend. My claimed score was about
655,000 on 40m SO HP assisted. I won the 40m
Oceania plaque donated by my friend Mike ZL2CC.
My score placed me 4th overall in ZL, not bad
considering there were 30 ZLs active, mostly
multibanders. I was beaten by Rick ZM1G (ZL2HAM
) who was doing rather well every time I heard him, plus ZL2AL (Lee and pals at ZM4T club)
and John ZL1BYZ hoovering up the points.

Oceania DX Contest CW
: I gave the 40m loop another good workout
on my favourite mode, operating single-op high-power single-band
40m. I made 712 QSOs. High QRN made it hard going, so much so
that I gave up half an hour before the end: I was really struggling to
copy callers and felt it was unfair on them to drag out the QSOs,
especially as there was a risk of me mis-copying their calls. Still, I won
another plaque for #1 Oceania on 40m: tnx Mike ZL2CC! Once more,
I was 4th overall in ZL, beaten by the ZM1A club, ZM90DX and ZL1BYZ, all multibanders. The
loop is a keeper!

CQ WW SSB
: ZM4T mustered just 5 SSB ops this year, just enough to have a go at a multi
-multi entry. Our claimed score was 7,601,696 from ~5,500 QSOs.

CQ WW CW
: the club’s 5 CW ops valiantly made an assault on the ZL multi-two record, hoping to complete the set of four (CW and SSB, multi-multi
and multi-two). We made just shy of 7,000 QSOs and 13.7
million points, not a bad effort! We were unable to run the
Athena stats package live during the event as planned on a
separate stats PC since the N1MM contest logging software
steadfastly refused to let us add the third PC to the network.
With hindsight, we probably should have configured N1MM for
multi-multi since it worked nicely in the SSB leg. We would
have lost the multi-two function that warns about excessive band changes, but that wouldn‘t
have been an issue as it turned out. We live and learn.

ARRL 10m:
with such good HF conditions, this would have been fun to enter but I had other,
more important things to do. I made about 60 casual QSOs, mostly giving points away to my
FOC pals and filling a couple more band-slots.

FOC Marathon:
yet another casual entry - I could only spare a couple of hours.

BERU:
80m was busy with weak Gs around their sunrise, and quite a lot of them stayed
around getting stronger at our sunset. 40m was noisy with OTHR the first evening, but noisy
with Gs the second! 20m was the money band, but not
much in the way of runs as usual for BERU (lots of S&P). LP
stayed open to G until the end here. 15m was patchy, with
a few bonus Gs in the last hour, SP. ZL2BR Frank's
predictions were excellent, as always. 10m was mostly
dead as a dodo ... but I was delighted to be called by 6Y0A
off the back of my beam while I was calling ZL1AMO on
sked having QSY'd from 15m. Wkd just 1 African: 5N7Q
long path on 40m (thanks to his huge rotatable
commercial shortwave broadcast beam). No VUs either, as
far as I recall. One 4S7. Missed ZD7XF. Wkd a steady
stream of VKs and ZLs and A35YZ split on 3 bands (though he’s not in the contest). Everyone
was polite, with no serious QRM - just a few persistent non-BERU stns (fewer than normal).
Glad to have the no-tune KPA500 for lots of quick QSYs, trying to find any kind of opening.
Thanks to fading alarm clock batteries that finally died at the vital moment, I missed my 5am
intended restart on Sunday by 2 hours! Bottom line: disappointing but not surprising with all
those flares and a very disturbed ionosphere.

CQ WPX CW:
I dragged the dusty old LK550 amp out of
retirement for this one, and what a difference 3dB makes! The
500W KPA500 does just fine for regular DXing but thanks to our
newly increased ZL license limit, I appreciate being able to use the
full kW in contests. The Reverse Beacon Network’s Skimmer spots also make a huge
difference in CW contests: after the first day, I spent
most of my operating time just working methodically
through N1MM’s extensive menu of juicy multipliers
on the band map instead of the usual slog of CQing
interspersed with search-and-pouncing. Lacking the
KPA’s instant no-tune band-changes, I decided to
stick to 15m throughout and found it fascinating to
track the changing propagation hour-by-hour. The
K3’s outstanding dynamic range and superb filtering
let me get up close to some huge signals with very
few problems apart from the odd clicks and buzzes
from older/crappy transmitters and over-driven linears. Noise-cancelling Sennheiser
headphones helped me concentrate hard
over the amplifier’s fans. My claimed
score looks good (7th in the world and
1st in Oceania - but boy are those
claimed scores close!), beating previous
Oceania records easily and hopefully
more than enough to reclaim my 15m
record from KG6DX but conditions were
up so I expect many records have fallen.
Friends Holger ZL3IO and Ken ZL1AIH
(ZM1M) were both QRV on 15m and were doing well whenever I heard them, while it seems
certain that Wes ZM3T (W3SE) has decimated my pathetic 10m record.
PS The adjudicator’s report shows I lost 3.7% of my score in checking due to errors: I’m
pretty happy with that: while an error-free log would be wonderful, I’m glad that my error
rate is well below 5% overall, and especially the 0.5% busted calls.

FOC QSO Party
(Bill Windle memorial): I scored 80 QSOs with members + 44 with non
-members, and enjoyed brief chats with many of them.

BERU:
due to antenna issues and other priorities, I could only manage a casual entry on 40 +
80m. Condx were not good but it was fun to catch up with a few friends from the UK.

FOC Marathon:
another casual entry on 40 + 80m plus 1 token QSO on 15m. It was great
to catch up with so many friends but hard going on 40m due to the Black Sea contest (which
no doubt was much more of an issue in EU) and VP8ORK parked on 7024, QSX 7025ish
(FOC’s preferred frequency). Such clashes are unfortunate and always create aggravation, but
it’s not obvious how to avoid or resolve them. All I can say is that every single FOC member I
worked was polite and friendly, some even kindly standing by on their frequencies when
someone else tail-ended, giving me the chance to make a quick QSO then QSY.

IARU HF World Championship:
I had completely forgotten about even entering this contest
until a certificate for
FIRST in ZL and ITU zone 60
turned up out of the blue 13 months
later!

CQ WW CW: I made time to enter CQ WW CW with my East Coast Contester friends at ZM4T. We beat the previous ZL record but we were soundly beaten by our friends from
Auckland: a late start caused by problems with the 10m beam didn’t help but that’s not
enough to account for the losing margin. Well done Jacky and Aki!

ARRL 10m:
What a blast! I wasn’t planning to enter this contest and can’t really afford the
time but conditions were so good I couldn’t resist. In the end, I operated for 32 hours single
op (no cluster!) high power (well 500W anyway). Condx were great apart from a dead period
at 07-10z on the first day, so I watched Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt instead of calling
into the void. N1MM kept crashing for some reason, roughly once an hour on average, but at
least it restarted quickly! I took the risk of updating to v11.12.0 during the contest but it was
no better :-( I made 1085 QSOs and 129 mults on CW, plus 636 QSOs and 102 mults on
SSB, giving 1,721 QSOs and 231 mults and a claimed
1,296,372 points. That is comfortably
clear of the previous ZL record of 176k points by ZL1ALZ, but I expect other ZLs have beaten
me. Not to worry, my 10/SSB WAS table is looking much more replete now! [PS My score
wasn’t even listed in the results: most likely I forgot to submit it! Doh!]

BERU:
claimed around 6,000 points from 469 fun-packed QSOs for the ZL team, the
Call
Blacks
, one third up on 2009. Given that BERU coverage is brand new in N1MM and it is an
unusual format, I'm not surprised if there are a few bugs in there. It doesn’t seem to have
counted ZK3 for example but I may well be wrong. Ten metres opened to the UK for some of
our Aussie friends, I gather, but I was happy to work a few VEs and some VK/ZLs on ten by
backscatter (I guess - I could only hear them when I was beaming to NE anyway). Countries
wkd: 3B9, 5B, 9H, 9J, 9M6, 9V, G/GW/GD/GM, J3, J6, J8, V5, VE1-7, VE9, VK2/3/4/6/7/8,
VO1, VP2M, VP8, VP9, VQ9, VU, VY1, ZB2, ZC4, ZF, ZK3, ZL1-4&6. Oh and a few lucky JAs,
BAs, Ws and DLs, naturally! DL1T was extraordinarily persistent, pestering me for ages but in
vain for a QSO on two bands with his very loud, very annoying signal (turns out that was in
fact ZL1T with a slow TX/RX changeover relay consistently knocking out the whole of his first
dash!). One RW6 station must have tried likewise for about 10 mins, changing his TX freq
every over and no doubt wondering if his TX was still working and/or my RX was broken.
These and several others really ought to listen more for those subtle little clues such as “CQ
BERU BERU BERU BERU TEST” and “BERU TEST ONLY UK/VE/VK PSE” (sometimes at ~12
wpm to give them no excuse!). On the other hand, a polite JA stn who waited for a lull to give
me a quick report was fine and I took pity on a few others this year if they were at least
courteous enough to wait until there were no BERU callers. I even found time to bag a couple
of non-BERU Caribbean stns just for kicks. Mni thanks to ZK3OU and ZK3YA who worked me
pileup-style and then gave me the BERU numbers when prompted. Thanks also to 3B9WR for
calling me on 2 bands: what a buzz! I was pleased to work few VUs again but still no 4S7 nor
ZS. And finally thanks to Nigel G3TXF for re-sending his call just to confirm he really wasn't
somewhere exotic this time! Hit a brick wall 90 mins before the end and sloped off for a little
rest that ended up being a big sleep. Next year I must remember not to install a deer gate and
fencing just before BERU (doh!). My final position was 26th overall and
3rd ZL, just behind
Frank ZL2BR and Brian ZL1AZE with only 75 points separating us three and Holger ZL3IO just
below - tight grouping for sure. 5,910 points was my final tally for 2010, just 1.5% lost. More
info on G3PJT’s site.

CDXC LF Challenge:
for some reason, my heart just wasn’t in it this year. Finished a
disappointing 21st out of 50 entrants. I’m glad I supported the event but I know I should have
tried harder and done better.

ARRL DX CW:
quite a buzz this weekend with great condx on 15m and 10m in good shape
to NA as well. Worked just 2 shy of 1,000 QSOs, claimed 537k points and filled several new
WAS band-slots (though sadly not ND). Awarded 519k points, and was pipped to the post by
John ZL1ALZ with 561k, leaving me
SECOND
of 2 in the not-exactly-hotly-contested ZL QRO
section.

CQ WPX RTTY:
I entered this contest partly because conditions were [relatively] good so
there were plenty of RTTY stations to work but mostly because I need the practice with
N1MM and MMTTY. My 172 QSOs gave 73,000 points claimed (66½k scored) and an
embarrassing 4th place out of 4 ZL entrants but the casual, low-key entry left me enough free
time to rescue an orphaned lamb from the forest (now named “Ritty”) and clear out the
spring that supplies our water.

Had a play in the 40m leg of the
VK/ZL RTTY Sprint.
Was a bit of a struggle with only the
vertical antenna - less than ideal for high angles (was easier working UA0IT just before the
contest than some of my compatriots!). Still, was worthwhile for the RTTY contest practice,
and I ended up FIRST
in ZL for the 40m-only section.

CQ WPX SSB:
other priorities meant a part-time single-band entry on 15m this year. Made
770 QSOs and claimed 871,832 points. Placed FIRST
in ZL but it’s a hollow victory as I was
the only ZL 15m single-band entrant! AH7DX’s record of more than 7½ million in 2000 is
hardly under threat!

CQ WPX CW
I entered single band 15m, single op, assisted, high power. Made just under half
-a-million points from a bit over 500 QSOs. It was hard going on the Sunday with only
mediocre sigs from North America and hardly any from South America. Placed
SECOND in Oceania a long way behind VK2IM’s 3.1 million points on 40m.

ARRL FD:
although I can’t actually enter the US/VE Field Day, it was a good chance to fill in a
few missing WAS band slots and surprise a few FD entrants with a DX call. I fondly remember
my first ever contest - RSGB NFD in 1979 with the Sutton and Cheam RS. I sure hope the
buzz from working a ZL persuades a few NA contest initiates to take up contesting too.

IARU contest:
this was a casual CW-only entry as once again I had other things to do during
the day - specifically building a fence to keep the animals away from my TX antennas - but I
made over 600 QSOs and enjoyed the conditions. On 20m around dusk, I turned on QSK to
explore the open paths by listening for my own signal
coming back. The long and short paths to North America
(SW and NE of me) were both open for about an hour,
while the paths to JA and Europe (NW and SE) were more
or less closed. It’s a bit disconcerting to hear my received
signal at a similar volume to the sidetone so I found myself
holding the rig in TX on the PTT footswitch while sending
callsigns and exchanges. There is a strange problem with
computer keying in QSK mode: the PC keys the amp
change-over relay OK but doesn’t key the rig, even though the MM3 keyer connected in
parallel does both. I really ought to get that sorted before the next contest. On 80m just after
dusk, we had one way propagation: there were strong signals from the US but most of them
couldn’t hear the ZLs calling. This resolved an hour or two later. Anyway, my final claimed
score of 357k won’t win anything in the multi-op section ... unfortunately, there is no “single
-op assisted” category in this contest, and the multi-op section is only mixed-mode.

IOTA:
I had a play in the 12 hour CW-only island single-op assisted section. Conditions were
not good. Don’t think i found any new IOTAs this year :-(

YO DX:
did just a few hours CW on 20 & 40m around ZL
dawn/dusk, scoring 40,656 points. Score table --> Either
I forgot to submit my entry (quite likely) or they lost it, but
I was not listed in the results. Either way, I think I would
have placed about 22nd in the non-YO QRO single-op multi
-band section, and FIRST in Oceania and ZL.

CDXC HF DX Challenge:
it was just a bit of fun.

All Asia SSB:
I didn’t actually enter this one but picked up a few more DXCCs for the CDXC
HF DX Challenge.

Oceania DX ContestSSB & CW:
I operated both sections with my friends at the contest
club ZM4T. We had a lot of fun and did rather well, hopefully setting ZL records in both
sections. It was also good practice for the CQ WW DX contests.

DXCC, Clublog DXCC league and CQ DX Marathon:
these are not contests as such but a
good motivator to chase new DXCC countries and track my performance against other DXers
using a combination of Logger32, Clublog and LoTW. I once again placed
FIRST in zone 32 and FIRST in ZL
for CQ’s DX Marathon 2010 with 288 points from 248 CQ countries plus all
40 CQ zones, unfortunately not quite good enough for a handsome shack plaque this year
but at least I get a certificate for #1 ZL and fond memories of a good year’s DXin’ :-)

BERU:the ups - I finally got the tribander installed on Saturday, just in time; ZL2BR's BERU
predictions were good once again, just missing the path to 9M/9V around 00-02:00z on 20 +
15m; FB Hawke's Bay QTH - so nice not to live in a valley; worked lots of old pals on 80-40
-20 and can still remember most of their names; worked VE7RAC, VK4WIA, ZL6A, plus
GB5CC on 20m, for HQ bonuses; made a single 5-bander with ZL1AZE; was called by ZS2DL
on 20m at 11:02z, for my very first CQ Zone 38 QSO here in ZL; had a "spare" (4th/non
-bonus) VU QSO on 20m for once, though no 4S; was lent a spare rig but didn’t need to use
it (TNX Lee ZL2AL); not too much QRM, just enough to remind me why I bought those IRC
filters and where the Reverse-CW button is; polite callers, willing to persist until we
completed; hand-logged QSOs with around 70 Johnny Foreigners who evidently hanker to
join the Empire and refused to copy repeated hints that I was working “BERU RSGB TEST VE
VK G ZL ONLY”! Managed to faze some by sending their call once with ENN in the hope they
would buzz off until after the contest; filled some more band-spots (thanks J88DR, H40FN,
6Y8XF, 9H3JT and VQ9JC). Downs: only had time to rig up the 80m inv-Vee at 11m off the
tower, running N-S; had to hand-rotate the beam with a rope as I'm 10m short of rotator
cable (doh!), necessitating a dozen dashes up the little hill and causing a few missed Qs;
missed 9J2BO completely (DXcluster would have helped I'm sure); tired from climbing the
tower and hill, needed 3 hours kip on Sunday morning and lost the will to contest for the last
half hour of BERU; had to hand-score in Excel since N1MM hasn't a clue. Equipment: TS850,
Amp Supply Co LK550 amp, Cushcraft A3S at 14m, 40m roach-pole vertical, 80m inv-V at
11m and my trusty MM-3 Morse Machine. 326 QSOs plus 2 dupes, 152 bonuses, final score
= 4,455 points, placing me36th out of 138 in the open section. Team ZL placed 4th of 7
teams. Excellent write-up here.

CDXC LF Challenge: I placed 13th out of 41, I think, enough to win another certificate (which
never showed up ...).

CQ WPX SSB:
not being a fan of SSB, I didn’t take part seriously in this contest but took the
opportunity to fill in a few SSB DXCC band-slots (plus some new CW slots too!) and complete
the installation of a rotator.

CQ WPX CW:
10m condx have been up and down the past month so finding the band quite
lively at the start I took a gamble on doing a single-band entry. After a reasonable opening run
, it just faded away and after the first four hours I only made 3 further QSOs for the
remainder of the contest. 69 QSOs and 53 prefixes made 10,441 points claimed.

IOTA:
first real run for the K3, worked like a charm. Also tried Win-Test for the first time -
seems OK but hard to justify the $$ compared to N1MM. And this was the first outing for
ZM4G - that worked well too, quicker and easier than ZL2iFB, though some struggled with the
ZM and a few asked where I was. Made about 475 QSOs in 10 hours (QRO single op assisted
multiband CW 12h). Not enough mults (60) - spent too long working the pileups and not
enough chasing mults on the band map. Lost a disappointing 9% of my claimed score in
checking but placed FIRST in Oceania and 4th worldwide.

Waitakere Sprint SSB:
I saw this one advertised and decided to give it a whirl for a change.
It’s an hour-long Saturday evening contest on 80m for VK/ZL/Oceania stations. My fairly low
80m dipole worked fine for this event but I’d be more competitive if it was oriented side-on to
VK, not end-on! Still, my 40 QSOs gave me joint 4th place in ZL and 12th overall in the SSB
event. I missed the CW one entirely but I’ll have to give it a go next time.

Oceania DX Contest CW:
operated with my international group of friends at ZM2M and put
on a jolly good show. Operating split on 40m was interesting - seems there are many hams
out there who flock to work anyone working split, regardless of who they really are :-) Got
grief from other ZL entrants though, and will have to move up the band next time I try that!

CQ WW SSB: I joined the lads at ZM2M for this fabulous contest and had a whale of a time.
We set ourselves a target of 3,000 QSOs, estimating that this would be enough to beat the
current ZL multi-two record, and thanks to good long runs on 15m we ended up with over 3
,500 QSOs. LF condx were poor, especially with heavy QRN on the second night, but still I’m
pleased we went to the trouble of building and erecting a topband vertical with a decent set of
earth radials.

CQ WW CW:
I rejoined the Voodoo contest group in Freetown, Sierra Leone for CQ WW CW
2009, operating 9L5A in the multi-two category. All five ops got on well as a team, ably
supported by our new best friend,
9L1BTB
Zbig- a star! He helped us immensely. With the
normal Voodoo equipment stockpile temporarily stuck in 3X, we were forced to take all the
equipment (including 3 x K3s and 2x Alphas) plus three portable beams and wire antennas for
the LF and WARC bands, on the plane with us to Africa from three other continents (Oceania,
America and Europe). The hotel QTH that had been selected previously worked very nicely
with a clear view from the roof across the Atlantic in the main two directions. We scored
around 19m points, achieving
world SECOND multi-two ... and FIRST in 9L (only entrant!)!

ARRL 10m:
not long after returning home from the 9L trip, 455 fabulous QSOs and 76
fantastic multipliers gave me
138k points claimed and a great big grin.

DXCC:
not really a contest as such but I had a good and very enjoyable year achieving many
new countries and band/mode slots.

Clublog DXCC league: the excellent Clublog lets DXers track our performance in relation to
our peers through the DXCC league. I enjoyed a year-long friendly competition with my friend
and fellow KiwiDXer John, ZL1BYZ - we were neck-and-neck all year.

CQ DX Marathon:
once again using AD1C’s program to extract the data from my log, I successfully entered this year and (after a friendly exchange with John K9EL) had my entry
confirmed on the official list of entrants. AD1C picked me a W QSO for zone 6 (XE) for some
obscure reason - must check the log ... aha! Seems N7TR, NX6T and a few other Ws have
[mistakenly] confirmed they are in CQ zone 6 via LoTW. Oops. Claimed 229 countries plus all
40 zones worked in 2009, total claim 269 points. Placed
FIRST in ZL and zone 32 (out of I
don’t know how many entrants, presumably not many at all!). 22nd overall I think.

CQ 160 CW:
had a brief play but my topband antennas are clearly poor radiators and the
amplifier was playing up too. More work needed to be even vaguely competitive. No entry.

LZ DX:
worked a handful just for the hell of it, and then got spammed by the contest
organizers expecting me to enter ... No entry.

UBA:
worked about 50 to fill in a few ON band-slots. No entry.

ZL Jock White Memorial Field Day:
worked a handful, then discovered I should have been
giving out branch 00 not 48 since I was a fixed station. Oops. Must read all the rules next
time ... no entry.

BERU:
interesting, my first ‘multi-op’ BERU entry since I used DXcluster. I had a reasonable
start at 11pm local, worked through the night and took a couple of hours sleep around
lunchtime the next day. Things were really slow going in the afternoon with no joy working
the Africans behind the hill, so I took a long walk and contemplated calling it a day. In the end,
I came back before dusk to find 40m open to G-land but although there were lots of G signals
, they were all very weak (S-zeroes). 4,515 raw points x Southern Hemisphere Fudge Factor
= 6,601 points claimed.

CQ WPX SSB:
I wasn’t planning to enter this one ... but got
carried away. After logging 100 QSOs in Logger32 which is
pretty hopeless in a contest situation, I changed over to N1MM,
an “interesting” move. N1MM successfully imported the ADIF
log extract but somehow I messed up the serial numbering. I
couldn’t convince N1MM to continue numbering >1, and for
some reason it wanted to restart at 1 on each band. In the end
, I ignored the suggested serial number and simply used the
QSO number at the bottom of the screen. The first day was a
blast with good runs on 15 & 10m. Overnight, we had a power
cut but luckily the generator works well and seemed quite happy to power the linear (with
better regulation than the house supply in fact!). On the final day, the bands were
comparatively terrible. I was unable to run on any band; 40m was full of EU sigs but due to
their local QRM, only a few could even hear me; 10m was open
with half a dozen W beacons audible but only a handful of W
stations to work. Still I slogged it out for just under 1,000
QSOs in total. Final score was 1,123,864 points, 948 QSOs and
376 mults, placing me FIRST in ZL and 44th worldwide but it’s
a hollow victory since the 2nd and 3rd placed ZLs were both
using low power: well done to my pals ZL1BYZ and ZL4PW.

CQ WPX CW:
I can’t remember much about this one except
that I made FIRST ZL and 9th worldwide.

CQ WW SSB: I joined ZM2M for a multi-2 entry. We scored around 2.7m points from 2,500
QSOs, 123 zones and 290 DXCC countries. I enjoyed my time on 40m and especially 80m
but although LF conditions were hot, 160m was disappointing: we could hear well but weren’t
getting out on topband. New 160m TX antenna required ...

CQ WW CW:
I had a brief play on 40m from home, then went to ZM2M to help their casual
Multi/2 entry. 40 + 80m were fabulous, again, and even 10m opened to JA for nearly an hour
.

CQ DX Marathon:
I entered even though I wasn’t actively chasing it and spent a few months
off air while moving home. My score of 231 was enough to
win ZL
but about 100 shy of the
leader - a very impressive lead! AD1C’s useful program to extract CQ DX Marathon info from
an ADIF log made it easy to find the new ones, although pasting the data into CQ Mag’s
official entry spreadsheet was awkward because it is password-protected which stopped me
pasting in the selected data.

2007 (ZL2iFB, E51iFB)

BERU:
although my entry was rather disappointing, I was glad to be a part of the
winning ZL
team
(the Call Blacks) with a nice commemorative medal for my efforts.

CQ WPX CW:
despite having an eminently collectable callsign (E51iFB), this was another very
disappointing effort, thanks to me being the wrong side of an enormous chunk of Rarotongan
granite from most of the accessible population centres. I only managed 51 QSOs in a couple
of hours on the Saturday evening, on 40m only using a vertical in a palm tree by the beach.
To make things even worse, the entire E51iFB log was subsequently lost in a puff of logic due
to the sudden failure of the laptop’s hard drive (lesson learnt!).

Oceania DX Contest CW:
I started this contest with good intentions on 40m & 80m but lost
the will to continue at around 1am local when the amplifier antenna changeover relay started
sticking in the TX position. There was just enough leakage in the RX path to hear strong
signals but I guess they were about 30-40 dbs down on normal. I fixed the amp with a
surplus Jennings vacuum relay during Sunday and rejoined the contest for dusk. All in all, 356
QSOs are in the log, all of them on 40+80m. Despite the overnight problems, I was placed
third
in ZL (behind ZM2B and ZL1BYZ) with 516,350 points and 230 multipliers.

CQ WW SSB:
made a token “all band single op assisted” entry - just 49 QSOs with 26 zones
and 31 countries, claimed 6,327 points. Placed THIRD out of 3 in ZL. The UBN report shows
100% accuracy for once!

CQ WW CW:
in conjunction with my
pal and fellow ex-pat Phil (VK4BAA ex
-G0HSS), we completed some
antenna upgrades and entered as two
single-op single-band entries from my
home: Phil doing 15m and me on
80m. Receive problems on the low
tribander, coupled with lousy condx,
gave Phil a hard time. He had a 40m
quarter wave vertical and loop to fall
back on but missed the beam’s gain.
We didn’t have time to rig up the 5
-ele 15m monobander, unfortunately.
I had it much easier on 80m with a
decent choice of antennas: a topband
doublet up the hill, an inv-Vee dipole in
the trees out front and a bent 80m
quarter wave vertical that is evidently
too bent to work. The inv-Vee did
most of the work. FIRST Oceania & ZL. Set a new Oceania record on 80m QRO single-op
assisted with 202,895 points from 680 QSOs, 32 zones and 85 countries.

2006 (ZL2iFB, ZL6QH, VK9NI)

ZL Jock White Memorial Field Day:
I joined ZL6QH. ZL FD is ‘different’ to NFD in G-land.
It’s 40+80m only and as activity levels are so low, we’re allowed to work each other again
every hour. The station requirements are similar, simulating emergency conditions.

CQ WPX CW:
entered as VI9NI, a DXpedition to Norfolk Island. Despite the special event
callsign celebrating the 150-year arrival of the Pitcairn Islanders in 1856, and some decent CW
contest ops, we did quite badly - just didn’t seem to be getting out for some reason. Bad
coax or something. Placed
SECOND in Oceania
(behind ZL6QH) with 3,063,995 points from
1,530 QSOs and 565 mults (and FIRST in VK9N!).

CQ WPX SSB:
entered single op low power 15m monoband. Scored 2,010 points from 33
QSOs and 30 prefixes in 3 hours of casual operation. Not my best effort but enough to win
the category (however with no other entrants, I also came last!).

CQ WW SSB:
part of the multi-multi team at ZL6QH not long before the diggers moved in to
install a forest of wind turbines. Placed
FIRST in Oceania
with 5,980,928 points from 4,668
QSOs, 144 zones and 344 countries.

1995 (G4iFB, G3GRS/P)

RSGB AFS CW: DXC - placed third
of over 100 clubs, I was 18th of 343 entrants.

RSGB QRP Fixed:
technical disqualification from 11th place for having a QRO PA (though I
didn’t use it - doh! I was using the transverter output from the TS850’s driver stage with
maybe 1 watt out - probably much less).

1981-87 (G4iFB, G3LRS/P, G5UM/P etc.)

I have lost my notes and only have vague recollections of contesting during this period. I recall
several HF NFDs with Sutton and Cheam RS at Tadworth, and VHF FDs at Leek, then I moved
to Leicester in 1983. I was at university throughout so really only entered a few club events in
the uni holidays.

Contest miscellany

The Contesters’ Code of Conduct

The primary aim of a contest QSO is to exchange only the essential QSO information
(normally callsigns, reports and contest-specific info such as zones number, state or serial
number) as efficiently (meaning quickly and yet accurately) as possible. In most contests,
anything further (greetings, QTH or station details etc.) is superfluous, slows down the QSO
rate and reduces the achievable score.

If you hear a contest in progress and want to join in, look up the contest rules to find out
what info to send and whether you are eligible to participate.

Listen carefully
before calling a contest station, ensuring that you have their callsign correct
and haven't already worked them (duplicate QSOs just waste valuable time).

Consciously avoid causing interference
for example by transmitting an overmodulated
signal, CQing on a frequency that is already in use (remember, listen first and listen hard) or
pestering a contest station for a DX QSO that is not valid for the contest (fair enough to call
once or twice if the contester is ‘lonely’ but if he doesn’t respond, leave it at that). Don’t
operate split in a contest unless it is absolutely necessary to consume extra bandwidth.

Call a contest station that is CQing at just the right instant, giving your full callsign
once
(that's usually enough). Most stations leave only a few brief seconds between their CQ
calls so it is important to synchronise your call with their listening periods.

Stand by for a moment if they go back to someone else. You shouldn't have to wait
very long. If they are really busy, make a note of their frequency and spend a few
minutes hunting for other stations to work, then come back for another go.

If they send your correct callsign plus a report and contest info, respond with just a
report and contest info. However if they send your callsign incorrectly, hesitate briefly
just in case they are working someone else but if you are certain they are working you,
respond by sending just your full callsign again, once or twice (no report) and they
should correct your call.

Do your level best to log their callsign and exchange info accurately, and to ensure that
they have all your info correct (e.g. repeating the essential information if conditions are
marginal). Sometimes several repeats are needed to complete the QSO but this is
necessary to claim the points and avoid penalties.

Having met the primary aim, you will both be grateful for the efficient QSO and points. It
is polite for the CQ station to send "thank you" or "TU" to confirm that the QSO has
been logged. This reduces unnecessary duplicate QSOs due to not knowing whether the
QSO was complete, and is the cue to move on to the next QSO.

Remain courteous
at all times, even when you are stressed or tired. If another station
encroaches onto the frequency you are using, use your filters, turn your antenna, ask them
politely to move a bit HF or LF as appropriate and/or shift your frequency a bit to reduce
mutual interference, or take this as an opportunity to go searching for new QSOs on the
same or another band.

Respect other hams
who are not in the contest, for instance by obeying 'contest-preferred'
frequencies and avoiding frequencies used by beacons, nets, DXpeditions and other modes.
Keep the WARC bands a contest-free safe haven for those who do not enjoy contests.

If you are using a club or another ham's station for the contest, be a good guest for example
by being careful with the equipment, tidying up afterwards and not annoying other people in
the house.

Play fair
. For example, if you are using DXcluster to find new multipliers, spot multipliers for
other contestants too. Single-op entries may be forbidden from using DXcluster so check the
rules.

Comply fully with the rules of the contest
both in letter and in spirit. Don't even bend them
.

Take as much pride in your station and operating techniques as in the contest certificates and
plaques hanging on your shack wall. Learn to take advantage of the propagation and make
the effort to listen for weak callers. Most of all, be polite, efficient and friendly and stick to the
rules to earn the respect of your fellow hams.